#and is said with wholehearted affection

[mistershoestied]

what the FUCK is paul robalino talking about

[stvrnioloslvt-inactive]

stripes and polo's - Matt Sturniolo

genre: fluff / t.w: none / pt.2 here

—★—

"i don't know what to wear..." you sigh throwing your phone on the bed, your friend on speaker.

"well, why don't you take something from matt's wardrobe? you only need a shirt anyway." you look around matt's room, checking to see if he has any spare shirts on the loose. however, it seemed that he had cleaned the whole room that morning, leaving it spotless and tidy.

"i can't exactly ask him, he's streaming with chris"

"and? just take one now and tell him later. i'm sure he won't mind, he has a thing for you in his clothes"

"that's not true," you mumbled, a rosy blush tinting your cheeks. you knew that your friend wasn't wrong, but it felt so wrong admitting that your childhood best friend had some sort of interest in you...and you did too.

"yeah yeah, if that helps you sleep at night..."

you ignore her remarks, digging through matt's clothes until you found something that caught your eyes: in the middle of black t-shirts, grey sweaters and an overall basic wardrobe, there was a striped polo hidden at the back of the drawer. you pulled it out, turning it around to check for any holes or stains.

"i think i found something," you announced to your friend, putting the polo on. it didn't fit you perfectly, as it was bigger than your shirts, but you didn't mind at all. you rose your hands to your face, smelling matt's familiar scent on the shirt, relishing in the comfort of one of your favourite people.

"i'm hanging up, i'll go tell him that i took his shirt. meet you up in ten minutes, yeah?"

"sure thing, love. see you in ten," and just like that, your friend had hung up.

you glanced at yourself in the mirror one last time, fixing your hair with your hands. you took your phone from the bed and exited matt's room, walking up the stairs to chris's room. as you got closer, you heard loud and clear the two boys screaming at each other, laughing at something stupid chris said.

your hand grabbed the knob, pulling it and entering the room just as chris started addressing the chat again. "chat, matt's type is someone who would pull off man's polo's, i'm telling you." his wholehearted laugh died as soon as you came into view, his face falling into one of pure surprise. he mirrored matt's expression, eyes wide and open mouths as you made sure that you weren't completely visible for the viewers. a little bit of the polo's sleeve was in view, enough to make the chat explode with comments.

you blushed as you realised how terribly timed your appearance was, and how badly matt's reaction had affected you. he eyed you up and down, slowly, taking in each by each of your body, mindlessly reaching out to you, pulling you closer. your heart drummed harshly against your ribcage, trying to escape its home.

"matt-" you called out anxiously, trying to pull him out of his mind, reminding him that there were thousands of viewers who were waiting for his next move, observing like hawks looking for their next prey.

"you look...good," he breathed out, smiling softly at you. behind him, chris was frantically trying to cover up the scene that was unfolding in front of everybody's eyes.

"thank you," you whispered, "do you mind if i borrow this one for the evening? i'm meeting up with a friend of mine."

"go on, sweetheart, it's all yours."

you smiled, turning to leave the room. just as you were exiting, chris read one of the comments: "someone wrote 《matt should teach us how to manifest quickly, cause that shit was crazy》 and i couldn't agree more."

"what are you talking about, that's my best friend..." but even as he tried to hide his blush, it was clear that behind his hand there was a big smile plastered on his face.

who knew, maybe in the future things would change.

©stvrnioloslvt

𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃/𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊. 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐎 𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐀𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓

hello everybody! hope you liked it, let me know if you'd like a part 2. also, would y'all like a tag list?

remember that my asks/requests are always open, i'd love to get to know you guys!

thank you.

love you all,

-bree♥︎

[alexthebordercollie]

Ford's autism

K so I don't think I need to defend the interpretation Ford is on the spectrum. People make jokes about him being autistic all the time. We all see it. What I want to do here is sort of connect together some character details and examine them through the lense of my own autistic experiences.

I wanna start with his hands. It's an observation I've seen from multiple people that Ford is insecure about his hands and often hides them behind his back or in his pockets. And yeah, he is obviously insecure about them. He even mentions his six fingers at times when they aren't really relevant to anything. It just showcases the space this physical deviation of his takes up in his mind. And yes, it makes sense that he's insecure about them because he was bullied for them growing up. I want to add to this observation.

Ford would have been bullied regardless.

The problem was never really his hands. When you're on the spectrum people around you can tell that you're weird. Uncanny. Something is different and feels wrong about you to NT people, especially kids. They will pick any shallow superficial thing they can find as an excuse to bully you and justify the sense of revulsion they feel around you but can't articulate. If Ford had been born with normal hands they just would have made fun of him for something else, it would have been his glasses, or the movies he liked, or hell maybe some good old-fashioned antisemitism. Literally, any excuse they could find.

I know growing up I tried for years to change the things about me that I was made fun of for and it never made things any better. The bullying never stopped. "Fixing" things about myself didn't work because the thing that was actually "broken" was something fundamental to who I am. That realization as a kid was soul-crushing. That there was nothing I could do that would ever make me "normal", that would ever make people like me. I felt like an alien born on the wrong planet.

Ford continues to latch onto his hands as a sore spot because they're something simple and obvious he can point to as an excuse for why he's so outcast. He probably knows by this point that the hands aren't actually the problem. I'd argue this journal entry and his comment about "another failed social interaction" shows that he's aware his hands aren't actually the problem. But, it is a lot easier to fixate on those than to dwell directly on that sinking feeling that at the core of you're being you are fundamentally weird, wrong, unlovable. Ford's a genius. If his polydactyly bothered him that much he could have removed the extra digits. The hands aren't the problem, they're a symbol of a more fundamental kind of pain.

Looking at it through this context also makes the gloves Fiddleford gives him an extra sweet gift given what they represent. A kind of wholehearted acceptance of who Ford is and even a willingness to adapt to his unique needs just to show him love and affection. I think something that hurts me so much about their relationship is that Ford had someone who very clearly loved him as is and would have never wanted him to be someone or something else, and Ford was too stubborn to fully appreciate that.

The same is true of Stanely by the by. He never had a problem with his brother being weird. Another relationship with someone who loved Ford as is but who Ford took for granted. He needs these kinds of relationships in his life. People who embrace and accept him for the weirdo he is. He needs them desperately, which gets me to my next point.

Ford's ego. So it's also a common observation that Ford has a massive ego. He's kind of an ass, to put it mildly. But I have had someone in conversation frame it like the pressure to prove themselves was just on Stanley and Ford just spent his whole life being hyped up and told he was hot shit. This isn't true, or at least it's a flattening of his experiences.

Ford was praised for his genius. This is true. But his own father only gave a shit when said genius showed signs of netting material gains for the family. It only mattered cause Ford could be useful. Furthermore, this genius never netted him social acceptance from his peers growing up. He was still a bullied, weirdo, loser most of his childhood. Add that seeing Stanley kicked out would have drilled into Ford's head that if he couldn't make something out of himself his family wouldn't want him either. Stan was an unspoken threat of what this family does to failures.

Gonna bring up my own personal experiences again. Having set the stage for how it feels growing up on the spectrum. That feeling of alienness that you can't really explain. I loved to write and draw from a very young age. Moreover, as I got older I realized that when I drew, people were nice to me. The only time I got social acceptance was when people were admiring or praising me for my art. So I did it more and more, I devoted myself feverishly to my art. I loved it anyway and would have hyper-fixated on it regardless but the positive reinforcement turned art from something I loved to a need. I NEEDED to be an artist. I needed to be the best at my school. I needed all eyes on my work because it was the only way I could make friends. The only way I could prove that I had value. That I deserved a place in society.

I see that in Ford. I see his ego not as shallow narcissism but as an overwhelming need to prove his value as a person. To be loved and accepted and believing that no one will want him if he isn't brilliant. If he doesn't change the world. If he isn't useful. This is also why he couldn't bring himself to destroy his research even knowing it was the safest and most responsible option. Burning down everything he worked for would mean finally giving up on the fantasy of ever being accepted or valuable.

The sad thing is he's so single-mindedly fixated on this personal goal of proving his worth to the world that when people do come along that love him unconditionally he takes them for granted. These people are statistical anomalies in his life. Nice to have around, but not enough to fix the bigger problem. They aren't reflective of society at large. They aren't enough to prove that he, personally, is loveable. Just that on occasion he meets another weirdo. For a while it's nice. Like a campfire in a barren tundra. But he has to keep moving, he can't stay. Warmer lands are ahead if he can just get to them. If he can just keep moving.

This also is why Ford was so susceptible to Bill. Bill told Ford what he wanted to hear. That he was destined for greatness. That, the fundamental wrongness he felt all his life was something incredible other people just couldn't see. Bill promised Ford exactly what he wanted, but not what he actually needed. Ford never needed the world at large to accept him. He just needed a few good people.

I also think his chemistry with Bill was connected to his autistic experiences as well. Bill is literally an alien. There's no pressure to mask around him. To try and "act normal". Ford can just be himself with Bill and not have to think about it. And sure, he could be himself around Fiddleford, but Fidds is still human. The anxieties of human social expectations are still present. Like when Fidds get him a gift for the holidays and Ford feels a bit guilty that it didn't even occur to him to do the same. He doesn't have to think about these social nuances with Bill.

That said I'm sure Bill isn't what his world would have considered neurotypical anyway. Not that Ford would know that. But Bill was also a strange freak in his own society. Just as outcast, possibly more so. I think Bill sees a bit of his own experiences reflected in Ford. I think he relates to him on a level. Not that he would ever admit it outright due to his own ego. I think Bill's fixation on him after the breakup also stems from Ford rejecting the path that Bill chose for himself. Bill still lives with some sort of deeply repressed guilt for what he did. Imagine how validating it would have been to see someone else like him burn their own world to the ground for the same reasons Bill did. But no, Ford's a better man than him, and Bill can't stand it.

Ok, I don't know how to end this long-ass monologue so I'm gonna call it here I guess. I just wanted to spill some thoughts of mine about Ford as a character. If anyone else wants to add to this with other examinations of Ford's character through this lense go right ahead. I'm just saying as an autistic person myself I understand every choice Ford made. I could relate to why he did the things he did even if I know those were mistakes and even acknowledging that he's kind of an asshole. Ford is a strange man who makes an eerie amount of sense to me.

[mosaickiwi]

Fall Unto Me (part three)

Part one, part two

I said I was on break but then a lot of things immediately fell out of my brain cause of stress so now I feel silly... sowweeeeee 🤡 Part four WILL be the last part I swear. If you see more Angel!Angel and Demon!Ren from me after that (and da infodump if i get to it) genuinely tell me to shut the FUCK up!!!

yes i am probably writing the NSFW version it'll be in my compendium post if it happens

cw// religious themes

14 Days With You is an 18+ Yandere Visual Novel. MINORS DNI

Your resolve was getting harder to hold on to, but you kept it. This would be the last time. You couldn't part from heaven again after returning. Atonement was waiting for you, eternal devotion to your duty right after.

Another few weeks went by as you stayed with Ren a little longer, the sea of flowers outside your bedroom window changing little by little each day. So many of them were already fully blooming, most of their petals stretched open to show off a myriad of colors while others curled inwards to hide from you. Practically a taunting mockery with how they took their time. As if insulted you would dare leave once they painted the horizon with their beauty.

It made it all the more painful that you'd never see them again. Or the companion that now felt like a piece you'd been missing.

Something about that encroaching deadline had affected the devil, too. Ren was calmer in some ways. They still brought you gifts and knowledge like usual, but he seemed to be taking his time just like the flowers. Simple answers to your curiosities became thorough while he held you close and urged you to ask more questions about whichever object took interest. 

He'd offered to revisit trinkets you loved as well. Until you were as familiar with using them as he was. You couldn't understand it. 

Your time together was draining away by the second. Didn't they want to make exciting memories? No matter how much you enjoyed it, mastery over human instruments or crafts served no purpose. Heaven wouldn't let you bring those things home, nor could you ask a higher power to recreate them for leisure.

Maybe your love was in denial of your departure. Or maybe spending little mundane, quiet days and nights together like this was their way of coming to terms with it.

Today, you chose to fiddle with one of the oldest gifts while chatting with him. The sun was just beginning to set, casting the room in the faded, flaming gold hue you'd only now gotten used to. 

“—Love?” He was calling you, the end of his tail swaying gently in front of your face to get your attention. You’d missed a few words.

“Hm?”

“You've gotten much better at this,” the pink haired devil hummed above you. His chin was resting atop your head as they cradled you in their lap on a frayed rug, his back against the bottom of the couch.

You looked over your work. The woven red string wrapped around and through your fingers took the shape of a pointed star. You knew real stars looked differently, but the human interpretation was interesting.

“Truly, it’s better than before,” you said with wholehearted agreement. The first time you'd tried—only on the third day of your visit to earth—had simply tangled the string to a knotted mess stuck upon your fingers for Ren to deal with while you apologized, embarrassed beyond belief. 

The patterns they taught you were almost easy thanks to your afternoon of trying. You unwound the string and painstakingly wound it again into one that often graced your practice: an angel. He'd been particularly smug about teaching you the motions of that one.

“An impressive self portrait,” Ren joked and squeezed you tighter in their embrace. “Although it'll take more than some thread to capture your divine beauty.”

Naturally, you rolled your eyes even though the soul it was meant for couldn't see it. A mortal gesture you'd gotten the hang of quicker than anything, as he so favored innocent teasing before expressing his deepest sincerities.

You untangled the string and tossed it to the side, then turned in their lap to make a face this time for their benefit. “I’ll do a painting, then. I’ve had enough of this toy.”

He relaxed his hold long enough for you to wander across the room in search of new distractions, but innocently called after you, “We’ll have to light quite a few candles for you to see well. Unless you plan to have me mix paints for you in the dark.” A second passed before he spoke again. “It’d be a pleasant surprise, I’m sure.” 

“Something else?” you replied, making a swift turn towards the bookshelves. You came back with a couple of novels and sat beside them with your treasure. “Is this really all you want to do? You’ve read every book here before.” 

Even the books he’d bought with strange, flimsy paper currency for you, Ren had said so casually, were already familiar territory. Tedium hardly described how boring you thought these weeks must be for him. But he never objected to anything you chose, as long as you both stayed close to home during the day. 

And you always kept your wings hidden in case a human roamed nearby. You'd never seen one come close to the cabin, or even the field of flowers, but he insisted your safety—and proximity to them—was of utmost priority. It was hard to remember the last time you let loose your wings at all after walking on the beach with him. They interrupted your thoughts once more.

“My sweet, delicate angel, I’ve had all the time in the world to do anything I want.” Their blue eyes narrowed with a smile as they spoke and you knew more teasing was coming. “We could even sit here in silence all night, if you asked me nicely.”

“How kind of you, my darling demon,” you teased them back. 

Another jesting response in his gaze faded to something different as you pulled him down for a kiss, gently at first. The books you’d brought over lay forgotten, soon shoved under the couch in favor of your new activity.

Kissing the demon you called yours felt like second nature now. There was no sting that ever came, no homesick aching in your back anymore. Only the flood of tender emotions he gave you, tainted by your own guilt and fears of parting from him.

You needed more. A stronger distraction. Your hand on his shirt tightened, determined to keep him. To stay in this moment as long as possible.

Ren exhaled, a muttering of blasphemous praise you dare not repeat whispered from his lips to yours, along with one word. A word that sounded odd to your ears. 

You'd heard it countless times over the months, but it didn't feel strange until after the first kiss you shared. He must have said it earlier, too, when you were occupied with that damned little red string. Demonic language was much different, it certainly wasn’t that at all. And the sounds of the word did feel similar to mortal languages, but nothing came to mind. So naturally, you could only assume it to be another of their pet names, but…

The thought fell to the side as you focused on him. He was all that needed to matter right now.

Their comforting warmth that called of your sacred home, your nails curling into the bottom of his shirt just to fall lower, an iron, almost nectar-like taste that flowered on your tongue—did you bite him this time? It felt good. 

Desperately, you brushed your hand over his thigh, getting dangerously close to where you knew things risked going further. You caught yourself and froze. You wanted him, you’d known since that day in the rain. In every way a being could yearn for another’s love. And of course he felt the same. But could you really go home if it happened? 

“Before I…” The words hung in the air and what remained weighed in your throat. Before I leave. Departure was looming on the horizon, sure as the sun would rise tomorrow. You dare not mention it to the one you loved again. You opened your eyes to meet theirs, cautiously as you wondered, “Is this alright?”

“Yes,” they answered, longing clear as the evening sky in his voice. “I couldn’t bear—or ever want—to deny you. Little angel, all you desire of me is yours to take.”

Without another word you did just that. You thought nothing of the faint, staggered line you felt under your fingertips that seemed to start somewhere along his shoulder blade as you lifted the shirt away and pushed him to lay on the rug. Your hands pressed their ink-stained arms flat next to the disheveled mess of pink hair and horns. Ren grinned at your audacity to pin him, but held still for your much needed exploration. 

Eyes half lidded with patient lust, mouth parted to show off pointed fangs, the devil looked to be the very picture of your sinful desires.

To be one with them, even just once, was a memory worth making. No matter what punishment waited for you at heaven’s boundary. You skimmed your fingers from the base of his collarbone, down over their stomach, and began to undo the buttons that concealed what you’d been waiting for.

[joshsilverseyebrow]

peter steele for KERRANG! Magazine (1999),

(VIA BiggestBaddestWolve ON REDDIT)

(OP has said it suffered some water damage, so i’m transcribing what i can read from the first full sentence i can make out. but i hope you still enjoy!)

THE DYING GAME

“I’m waiting for the strength to kill myself…” PETER STEELE

But, consistent with recent interviews in which he’s disparaged the album as a “waste of money,” he’s about as interested in playing his record company's hard sell games as the Pope is in the contents of Pamela Anderson's bikini. He admits that he's only here at all because “I promised the other guys (guitarist Kenny Hickey, keyboardist Josh Silver and drummer Johnny Kelly) that I'd do my job.”

Steele's apathy is all the more surprising given that “World Coming Down” is his band's most complete, cohesive and fully-realized work to date. It's also arguably the New York quartet's bleakest recording: an album which resonates with world-weary cynicism and self-loathing and sees Steele cheerlessly embracing self-destructive urges and yearning for descent into oblivion.

Given his huge appetite for sarcasm and deadpan piss-taking, the album's none-more-black atmosphere verges on goth-metal parody - but today it's disturbingly evident that Steele's current dark mood isn't just an ironic affectation.

"I FEEL like a total ingrate," he sighs, slumping his massive frame into a leather-bound armchair as we retire to the hotel bar. "I have a great life, I have my health, my family and friend; I'm not the worst-looking person in the world, I've got a half-way decent band - and yet I'm not happy. I'm just waiting for the strength to kill myself."

From other rock stars, such whinging might seem like mere melodrama. But when Peter Steele admits to suicidal thoughts, his matter-of-fact musings are coloured by personal experience. On October 15, 1989, tanked up with alcohol and self-pity, the vocalist slashed both his wrists and crawled into the back seat of his car to die. “At that time it was because my girlfriend had left me and took 95 per cent of me with her. I thought I could not go on without her,” he sighs.

“Obviously I was wrong.

“The worst part was actually

coming home and hearing that my ex-girlfriend's mother had phoned my Mom and told her that i'd been hammering on her door with blood dripping from me. That was really embarrassing.”

At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, isn't slashing your wrists more of an attention-seeking act than a genuine suicide attempt?

"I wanted to shoot myself in the head," he shrugs, "but I couldn't get a gun - which is kinda ironic, considering you seem to be able to buy a gun on every corner in Brooklyn. Okay, it was probably not a wholehearted attempt last time - but next time it will be. Life is a game, and like cards sometimes you have to know when to stop playing. l'm not getting anything out of this any more.”

You must have fans writing to you telling you that Type O Negative's music has got them through difficult times - what do you think those fans are going to make of what you're saying today?

Steele shrugs, and drains his first glass of red wine.

“I’d advise anyone who's depressed to stop reading right now,” he smiles.

THE SHADOW of death hangs ominously over “World Coming Down,” Songs like “Everyone I Love Is Dead” and “Everything Dies” are rested in tragic personal experiences for Peter Steele.

The album was written in the aftermath of the death of his father on February 14, 1995, and recorded during a period when Steele lost an aunt and uncle and watched his mother battle againat serious illness for almost a year in a New York hospital.

"I expected her to die," Steele says quietly, "and unfortunately I still think she'll be next to go. One of the most traumatic things in life is loving someone and watching them die and knowing you can't help them. I just don't know how to handle watching people die. Maybe It's cowardice but I truly wish I'm next. I've tried everything in excess - Prozac, alcohol, cocaine and women - in an effort to deal with life. Nothing works for me.”

Steele says that his parents never discussed his own suicide attempt, but admits: "I think I hurt them a lot." The death of his father, has had a "profound effect" on the singer.

Is there anything you wish you'd asked your father before he died?

“I’d just like to have asked, Why didn't you spend more time with me?,” Steele says, sounding uncharacteristically vulnerable. “When I was a kid and he'd come home from work, it was like Superman coming to the house, but I always felt like I was some little happy dog that was always underfoot and he was always trying to kick me away.”

The youngest of six children - he has five elder sisters - Steele can trace his current feelings of worthlessness right back to his childhood.

“I used to feel that I was an unsuccessful abortion,” he sighs. "That I’d pulled myself out of the bottom of the bucket and lived. I remember when school would start, my father would say things like, ‘Now we have to buy him clothes’, and I’d just wish I could unzip my skin, crawl out and slime myself under the bed and die. I felt like such a piece of shit.

“My mother still doesn't have a good word for my father,” he reveals.

“I don't think she ever forgave him for inflicting kids upon her. I'd love to say to her, 'Mom, if he was such a prick, why did you stay?’ He didn't seem a bad guy to me. I think he was just tired by the time I was born. My mother had me when she was 39 and my father was about 41.”

No offence intended, but as the youngest of six kids, did you consider the possibility that your conception might have been a mistake?

“Put it this way, there was an average of three years between my sisters, but there was eight years between me and my nearest sister,” Steele replies without flinching. “I know I'm just the result of a biological urge at four in the morning when the pharmacy was closed."

DEATH FIRST impinged upon Peter Steele's consciousness at the age of seven, when his grandfather passed away (“I didn't really understand what was going on but I saw my mother was crying, and thought that it was probably my fault,” he notes). Born of Russian and Icelandic parentage, Steele grew up in the middle of two theo-fascistic ideologies - Catholicism on one side and the Orthodox church on other”, and although he recalls praying after the deaths of his grandfather and uncle, he rejects the Christian notion of life after death.

“If Hell does exist, then I'm certainly going there,” he smiles. “I actually think it's cruel that someone who suffered their whole life is just going to go to the grave and share the same fate as people like Hitler or Stalin, who deserve to go to Hell, But no one said life is fair.”

Do you believe you have a soul?

“No, I'm just a very inefficient meat machine lubricated with mucus and semen,” he answers.

And you don't fear dying?

“I don't fear death, but i fear dying.” Steele confesses. “The thought of being in a car accident or being burned and lying in a hospital suffering is horrible. I don't like pain - If I found out I had cancer, l'd probably rob a bunch of banks and hope I'd get shot by the police.”

So when you shuffle off this mortal coil, how would you like to go?

“I've been thinking of the cleanest way to kill myself recently,” he admits.

“Everyone talks about poisoning themselves - but you vomit and shit everywhere, which is not cool. A shot in the head would be ideal, but I'd feel sorry for the person who had to clean my f**king brains up.

“I’ve got a tidier solution, actually," he smiles. "I want to attach a water pipe to the wall of my house and then take one of my weightlifting bars, sharpen the end like a spear and place it into the top of the pipe about 40 feet off the ground, with a rope attached. Then I'd lie under the other end of the pipe, point it at my temple and let go of the rope. Gravity would take its course and it wouldn't be too messy. That would be a neat end to all this misery.”

You don't go along with the view that suicide is the coward's way out?

“No, anyone who kills him or herself automatically gains my respect,” Steele shrugs, betraying not a flicker of a smile. “No one knows what lies beyond, and it's a trip from which there is no return. You have to admire anyone who'll willingly step into the unknown.”

You don't think it's a selfish act?

“It is, but I don't think if I killed myself 'd be affecting anyone detrimentally.” he considers. “If I had a wife and child I might think differently.

“I'm starting to think that children are maybe what I need, actually,” he continues. “Maybe bringing new life into the world is a way of replacing the void you feel when you lose someone. At the moment, though, I don't think that I could be so cruel to a woman as to implant her with my demon seed.”

SUCH COMMENTS are a reminder that even when discussing grave matters, Peter Steele's bone-dry sense of humour is never far from the surface. The singer concedes that “sarcasm has always been part of my insecurity” and admits: “It's a strange thing that when I'm lying people believe me, and when I'm telling the truth they don't.” But he insists that he's deadly serious about initiating his own exit from this life.

“I know someday I'll do it, I just don't know when,” he smiles. “When I feel l've become more of a burden than a help to those around me, It'll be time to take that swan-dive from the World Trade Centre. But one of the things that gives me a slight glimmer of happiness is irritating people, so l continue to live just to annoy them.

“But nothing gives me pleasure ary more,” he sighs, gulping down the dregs of his second glass of wine. “I’ve become really nihilistic and I just wonder who's going to be next to die. And I pray to God - if She's listening - that it's me.”

TYPE O Negative's ‘World Coming Down' album is out now.

[ellebellewritesfic]

Daylight

I won't copy all the lyrics in because it will take up too much space, but you can listen on Spotify here.

For Day 4 of @empyreanevents Bodhi week: Prompt is Perfect.

Thank you to my darling @theoppositequeens and Cassie for the beta 🥰

Read on AO3 here.

---

The sheets were too warm, but Bodhi didn’t move. He couldn’t – not with Liam breathing soft and steady beside him, limbs half-draped across his own, the duvet kicked low around their waists. Daylight streamed through the blinds in weak slats, glinting off Liam’s hair, kissing his bare shoulders like even the beams of light couldn’t help themselves.

Bodhi lay still and watched him, watched the twitch of his nose when the light crept too far, the way his fingers twitched when a dream passed.

God, he looked perfect.

He looked like some kind of ethereal angel tangled up in Bodhi’s sheets, like he could cure all the problems of the world with just his smile. 

Which was precisely the problem.

Bodhi swallowed, eyes drifting to the ceiling. He didn’t deserve this – him. Not really. Not in the way Liam gave himself – wholehearted, unguarded, like Bodhi was a certainty and not a gamble.

But Bodhi had gambled when he’d told Liam about his feelings, even after all of Violet and Imogen’s prompting. For 20 years, he’d felt like he was living in the dark – that the only light in his life was the one cast by the man lying next to him. Bodhi had always felt comfortable in the dark, hiding away from everyone and everything, knowing that all his fears and insecurities automatically looked worse in the light. Everything looked worse in the light. 

Everyone except Liam. Liam looked like he belonged in the light. He was the light. Bodhi only ever felt exposed by it – although somehow, not by Liam. The confession had been natural, accidental, and yet Bodhi had almost choked when the words had spilled from his mouth. 

But Liam had merely beamed his sunshine smile. “Me too, Bodhs,” he had said softly. “For so long now.” 

Bodhi hadn’t dared to believe him at first, convinced that this was some kind of prank – some kind of practical joke. There was no way someone as perfect as Liam could possibly want him. He’d always seemed so much larger than life – running around with a group of boys who had made it their goal to make their way through every conquest in the town – not someone who Bodhi had ever expected to settle down. 

He let his hand drift to Liam’s hair, fingers combing idly through soft strands, as if he could memorise every curl before reality caught up and told him it was temporary. A fluke. A joke.

Luck of the draw or something – not that he had ever thought that he would get this lucky. 

“Stop that,” Liam mumbled suddenly, voice thick with sleep and affection. He cracked one eye open, pale blue and half-lidded with fondness. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” Bodhi asked, trying for casual, but failing spectacularly.

Liam shifted closer, nose brushing Bodhi’s shoulder. “Thinking mean thoughts about yourself so loud it’s making the air taste bitter.”

Bodhi huffed a laugh, short and hollow. ��Maybe I’m just overwhelmed by your beauty.”

Liam propped himself on one elbow, amused and already far too awake for Bodhi’s comfort. “You’re deflecting.”

The problem with dating someone you’d known for more than twenty years, was that they had also known you for twenty years.

Bodhi sighed, averting his eyes. “Old habits.”

“Shitty habits,” Liam corrected, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. “You always act like this – us – is some mistake.”

Bodhi stared up at the ceiling, knowing he shouldn’t say the words that came to his mind. But he did anyway. “Isn’t it?” he whispered, unable to look at Liam. Beautiful, perfect Liam. 

Liam froze. Then he sat up, gaze sharpened, utterly focused. “Do you actually think that?”

Bodhi shrugged, a one-shouldered tilt that didn’t match the ache in his chest, still resolutely not looking at Liam. “You’re perfect. You – you light up every room. Me? I storm out of them. Or disappear into the corners. I’m angry, tetchy – I couldn’t be more different to you if I tried. I’m the butt of every joke I tell first, just so no one else gets the chance. I’m just... You could do so much better – you’re perfect, and I’m just… me.”

Liam didn’t answer immediately – scrutinising Bodhi like he was some kind of complicated puzzle.

“But you’re perfect for me,” he said calmly, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Then he leaned in, soft and deliberate, and pressed a kiss to Bodhi’s temple.

“You’ve got the most perfect mind,” he murmured, lips brushing the words against skin. “You think before you speak. You remember things people forget about themselves. You care, even when you shouldn’t. It’s perfect.”

Before Bodhi could answer, he pressed another kiss to his cheek. Then the other.

“Your cheekbones could cut glass,” he said dramatically, voice warm with affection, “and they do, every time you smirk at me like you don’t know you’re hot.”

Bodhi laughed despite himself and Liam grinned, then leaned forward again, lips brushing his.

“And these?” he said, voice dipping as he kissed Bodhi once, then again, slower. “These are the most perfect lips I’ve ever kissed. Even when you’re biting them to stop yourself from saying something kind.”

He pulled back slightly, then seemed to think better of it, pressing chaste kisses to Bodhi’s lips, like he couldn’t get enough of him. Bodhi found himself getting lost in the feel and taste of Liam, and when the blonde pulled back, his thoughts were hazy. Damn, that man knew how to kiss.

Liam merely smirked, then pulled back just enough to take Bodhi’s hand in his, lifting it to his mouth and placing a kiss on each fingertip, reverent.

“These hands,” he whispered, “fix broken things and create beautiful ones. You help people work through their pain. You always use them to help. You don’t even realise how rare that is. How perfect.”

Bodhi’s throat was tight. He didn’t know what to say. He had never had someone love and cherish him like this – least of all someone as perfect as Liam. 

But Liam didn’t stop, trailing his hand down, fingertips ghosting along his torso, and grinned – seemingly uncaring that Bodhi was overwhelmed – or just deciding not to stop regardless. “Also, you’ve got ridiculously perfect abs, which is frankly unfair.”

Bodhi rolled his eyes, but Liam was already kissing his way down – playful, dotting exaggerated kisses to each ab like he was counting them. “One. Two. Three – god, these are sharp. Four – stop laughing. I’m being romantic. There’s like eight of them, Bodhs.”

“Are you?” Bodhi managed, breathless from laughter and something warmer.

“Dead serious.” Liam winked, kissing lower, letting his mouth wander down to the soft line of Bodhi’s happy trail, to the sharp V of his hips. He looked up then, mischief in his eyes, and something deeper too – something honest.

“I don’t wanna look at anything else,” he said quietly. “Not now that I’ve seen you. Had you. Made you mine.”

And Bodhi – aching, unworthy, still learning how to be loved – believed him.

At least, in this moment. In this golden, impossible morning.

In the daylight.

[hestzhyen]

On Hakuri and 愛 (Pure Love)

Hello dear void. Here's a crazy character theory/interpretation for you: Sazanami Hakuri has no idea what love is supposed to feel like or be expressed as and it deeply affects his character to the point of being a major (and tragic) flaw. This is at least half the the reason why he's devoted to saving lives no matter the cost to himself, and he will continue to be this way until his lack of understanding is addressed and corrected. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Just kidding, of course there's a yapfest coming.

This was part of my usual weekly chapter rant until I realized it needed to be it's own thing. As to why I'm going on about this: blame the colour page. The captions get removed for the English publication, but there's always some text in the Japanese version. In this case, for our first-ever solo Hakuri colour page, we got: 胸に秘めたその信念- [mune ni hi meta sono shinen-; "The conviction(s) hidden in his heart..."] (My TL isn't perfect, but the sentence is simple enough that I'm confident I got it mostly right.)

Hidden, hm? Hakuri, the most zero-filter, living-in-the-moment, heart-on-his-sleeve guy in the Kagurabachi universe is hiding something? Of course he is! We just went through a whole arc about it!

The easiest conclusion to draw is that caption is talking about Ice Lady and/or the indoctrination he underwent growing up as a Sazanami.

He only mentioned Ice Lady as "someone who set [him] on the right path" to Chihiro in a flashback panel in chapter 34- no one in the cast except Hakuri knows what happened with her. He keeps her memory close but hidden from the world. Her suicide drives him to be a savior regardless of the cost to himself; he'll never let another life slip through his hands again even if he can't or won't talk about her. She's definitely his reason to exist as he is right now.

As for the indoctrination, growing up as a Sazanami means believing that you are a tool that lives for the Rakuzaichi. That sort of thinking is still present in Hakuri too- he just shifted the fervor from "honor the Rakuzaichi" to "make the world a safer place".

It's hard to say how much of his lineage he's hiding right now (if any at all) as of writing this, but Hakuri doesn't seem to be taking any precautions to keep people from finding out he's a Sazanami. He was even completely up front with Chihiro and Shiba about it and his family's mindset when they met! So he might not be cognizant himself about why he's so wholehearted in his devotion to a cause, but it's there in plain sight for anyone to remark on.

All that said, I'd like to posit that there's another 信念 -conviction or belief- that Hakuri's hiding- one that he's buried so deep that he doesn't realize it's even there, despite it being just as influential as Ice Lady. It's the depressing result of being raised as a "tool". Worse, a "useless" one.

Hakuri's deeply held belief in his own lack of worth is a key factor in his suicidal recklessness when it comes to acting on his other convictions.

"You poor thing. You're the one imprisoned in a cage."

It's all rooted in the Sazanami interpretation of "love", of course. Hakuri's warped view of affection is a key factor in why he's so goddamn reckless. He rejected the way his family viewed and treated other people like Ice Lady, but he hasn't spared any of that righteous anger for himself. He completely accepted how his family treated him and still holds the same mindset towards himself, whether he acknowledges it or not.

Because this is not something someone just shrugs off after an arc (not with a competent writer, anyway):

Most people would not frame this kind of blatant abuse as "love" in any way, shape, or form. And yet...

"When push comes to shove, Chihiro will abandon you!! He'll put himself first! But I'm not like him! I love you unconditionally..."

"Because... you always loved me..."

Hakuri and Soya both recognize Soya's feelings for Hakuri as not just any love, but as the deepest, purest love there is: 愛 [ai]. It's a horrific interpretation of something that's supposed to be almost unspeakably precious, but that's what the arc built the Sazanami clan's whole identity as villains around. It took key aspects of Chihiro's character -specifically his father's love and legacy- and warped them into something toxic to be put down through Hakuri.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------* Before the panic sets in, I wanna say that ai is neither inherently nor exclusively romantic- that's 恋 [koi].

Mutual feeings of ai are the end-goal of many a romance story, yes. Everything builds up to that climactic declaration of 愛してる [aishiteru, "I love you"]. But ai can also be felt for family, friends, and even pets. It's for anyone the person builds up a profound enough affection for.

So Hakuri and Soya using ai to describe Soya's feelings isn't meant to imply romantic intentions (though I understand why some people ran with that interpretation). Actually, I will vehemently argue the opinion that these two using it at all means neither of them have a single clue as to what ai is supposed to look or feel like in any context. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

There's a reason Hakuri bitterly acknowledges Soya's abuse towards him as ai. It's the same reason Soya framed his abuse as acts of ai in the first place. It's not valid as justification, but it's understandable: they just don't know any better.

Kyora: "...Hey now, don't you love me?" Hakuri: "...? We love you." Tenri: "Of course we do."

There are multiple words for "love" in Japanese, but ai is supposed to be the deepest, sincerest, most profound and unselfish type of love there is. Ai is merely an imperfect term for an affectionate sentiment beyond words. If you have to clarify or explain your feelings as "ai", then they might not be ai in the first place.

Kyora throws around ai as something that can be used or withheld for any reason at all. Someone who truly felt ai for their kids would never do such a thing, much less consider it! But the Sazanami mindset corrupts even the concept of pure love and all of them are worse off for it.

So Hakuri only knows this ultimate form of love as abuse and manipulation. He believes that it's something conditional. Something painful.

Something he's not worthy of if it's positive, but earns if it's negative.

Any scrap of it he could get.

Contradictory and illogical? Yes. But if you understand why someone can wholeheartedly believe in that, I've got a hug or a fist bump or whatever you're comfortable with waiting for you.

Hakuri never talked about how far Soya -the manifestation of everything that was fucked up with his family- went to dehumanize him. Shiba and Chihiro got the "it wasn't so bad" version of the abuse. Just the beatings, no mention of the Visual Metaphor Tools he's still got hidden inside his storehouse. No talks about how he craved love with every fiber of his being but was tortured in the name of it over and over for years. No forced recognition that what was done to him would not be considered an act of love by any sane, rational human being.

The closest Hakuri's ever come to acknowledging that this might be an issue for him was when he asked to join Chihiro:

Taking the first step.

He's here for Ice Lady and to see if he can find out what Chihiro saw in him that made Enten a worthy trade for his "worthless", "useless" life. He's trying to understand why Chihiro regards him so highly as an "equal" as much as he's trying to be a savior. Both of these reasons drive him. But he only flashes back to one for motivation. He'd really rather not think about the other one (and hasn't outside of this moment).

No one alive knows what he truly endured and how it warped his perception of love and self-worth. He keeps his beliefs about his own worth hidden away in his storehouse as the peeler, wrench, chair, and more. Ice Lady had a glimpse, but he killed her with the loving Sazanami mindset that justified his own torture. He's carrying this burden alone and it's weighing on him and everything he's doing this arc.

So that's where we're at right now. Hakuri's reasons for acting the way he does are hidden alongside the beliefs about himself that he's yet to address, the combination of which is sending him into a self-destructive spiral. He won't be able to climb out of this mindset until someone can convince him that he's worthy of love just for existing- that ai is so much more than fists, metal rods, and calculated manipulation.

My hopes on how he learns this are obvious as a HakuHiro shipper, but I think it could easily come from everyone around him. Shiba, Char, Hinao, maybe Samura and Uruha and other characters we have yet to meet as well. All of them can help him let go of this hidden belief and replace it with something more wholesome. I just hope it happens before he loses something precious and irreplaceable.

[bitchiswild]

Short Problem

Rosé x F! Reader

Warnings: height insecurity

Word Count: 484

A/n: it’s short cause you’re short 😈

GET BACK TO WORK YOU ELF ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS 🎅🏻

I also typed in a random age🥸

Requested

༝༚༝༚

Being short sucks. It's been a constant struggle – reaching for things out of my grasp, enduring mistaken assumptions about my age, enduring the endless teasing about my height. For 22 years, it's been a source of deep insecurity for me, making me feel inadequate and small in more ways than one. But then I met Rosie.

Rosé is an amazing person. She's vibrant, charismatic, and head over heels for me. What strikes me the most? She doesn't give my height a second thought. She loves and admires me for who I am, not how tall I stand. In her eyes, my height is endearing, and she cherishes every moment we spend together.

"Chaeyoung! Help!" I called out, struggling to reach a bowl in the kitchen. Her footsteps rushed in, concern coloring her features. "What happened? Are you okay?" Her worry was endearing.

I awkwardly pointed at the top shelf. "Can't... reach... bowl," I admitted, feeling silly and small.

Rosé's eyes widened, and she giggled softly. "Oh, I got you, baby," she said, moving to grab it. Relief washed over me. But just as I tried to grab it, she playfully lifted it above her head, and I couldn't help but pout.

"Chaeyoung, that's not fair!" I whined, and she chuckled.

"Give me a kiss first, and I'll hand it over," she teased, puckering her lips. Rolling my eyes at her playful demand, I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. As I pulled away, she pretended to protest with a mock pout. "Hey, I'm not finished," she teased.

Swiftly, I snatched the bowl, sticking my tongue out teasingly. "Thanks, babe," I quipped, turning to arrange the fruits. She hugged me from behind, resting her head on my shoulder.

"You know, I love that you're short. It gives me a chance to help you," she said softly, her affection melting my heart.

I chuckled. "And thank you for being my tall superhero, rescuing things from the heights," I teased back. She gently turned me to face her, tracing my face with tenderness.

"I love you," she whispered, pulling me into a sweet, lingering kiss. "I love you too," I whispered back, our smiles speaking volumes.

Being short has always brought insecurities. There were times when I felt self-conscious, wishing I could reach the top shelf or stand eye-to-eye with everyone. But Rosie has this magical way of turning those insecurities into cherished quirks. Her unwavering support, playful teasing, and her wholehearted acceptance of every part of me, including my shortcomings, dissolve those worries away. With her by my side, those moments of doubt about my height fade into insignificance. Her love makes me realize that the size of our hearts matters far more than any physical attribute. Thanks to Rosie, the cons seem to shrink away, leaving behind a world filled with love, laughter, and countless reasons to celebrate being exactly who I am.

༝༚༝༚

[walkswithmyfather]

Daniel 1:8-16 (NLT). “But Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods. Now God had given the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel. But he responded, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has ordered that you eat this food and wine. If you become pale and thin compared to the other youths your age, I am afraid the king will have me beheaded.”

Daniel spoke with the attendant who had been appointed by the chief of staff to look after Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. “Please test us for ten days on a diet of vegetables and water,” Daniel said. “At the end of the ten days, see how we look compared to the other young men who are eating the king’s food. Then make your decision in light of what you see.” The attendant agreed to Daniel’s suggestion and tested them for ten days.

At the end of the ten days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king. So after that, the attendant fed them only vegetables instead of the food and wine provided for the others.”

“Motivated for Commitment” By In Touch Ministries:

“When our heart's desire is to honor God, He will provide clear direction for the challenges of life.”

“Although Daniel was living as a captive in Babylon, he resolved in his heart not to violate God’s laws. What motivated this young man to live out such a pledge?

Devotion to God. Daniel determined that he would not disobey God and defile himself. Dedication to God means choosing to be set apart to love, worship, and obey only Him. When we keep Jesus Christ as the focus, our heart will overflow with thanksgiving and we’ll be motivated to stand firm.

Clear direction. If Daniel had refused outright to eat the king’s food, he would likely have lost his life. The Lord gave him and his friends the wisdom they needed to develop an alternate plan—and then also provided them with the courage to ask permission to carry it out. Notice that there was no loud demand, argument, or rebellious spirit. Their behavior was marked by trust in God and dependence on Him.

Through daily prayer and meditation upon God’s Word, we can keep our eyes centered on Christ, our ears attuned to His voice, and our heart motivated to obey. We’ll be able to make the same wholehearted commitment that Daniel did. So ask yourself, How eager am I to do God’s will?”

[Picture thanks to Raul Petri at Unsplash]

[phoenixculpa]

1/2

high average abjugate carnage theatrical red sinewed erosion

cartoon white stream of conscious pupil-less new age gen x

red lined new sous chef, can’t deign to check email sobre fish,

no cash balance to advance, tied in better

places or wheel gridlocked like where’s love

one gets along well with to protect from

king of darkness slaying dragons in a

tyrannized office like, “get lost, bloodline,”

gumption, affect. calculated watch to

four eye glimmered imbalance to

teeter on nuanced cordial allegian-

ce, “you’ll leave too,” before one knows

a wholehearted electric pulse to chest

ridden with escapist fantasy: ride train

to upset stomach, find butterflies a-

gain where expected around bend,

always watching, saw her silhou-

ette like christ said get well this

xmas

[lunar-years]

whenever I think about how Jamie (nor really anyone) knows about Rebecca's actions I get even more and more annoyed with the writers. Jamie deserved to be hurt, he was literally a pawn in other people's games without his knowledge.

yeah, I get this. I do think it is really beautiful of Ted to not get angry with her and to also not go around exposing Rebecca's actions to everyone else on the team, rather offering her wholehearted, blanket forgiveness. That is such a wonderful and meaningful standout moment in the show. That said, of course Rebecca's actions weren't only Ted's to forgive. They affected the entire team. All the player's careers (Jamie's especially because of her sending him back, yes, but literally all of them), Beard, Higgins, Keeley. That said, from the perspective of the show, this is actually an instance where I understand why the writers let the matter lie instead of sending Rebecca on an apology tour, because I think it would have been really hard to write that organically. Like, Keeley knows and doesn't tell Roy. Ted knows and doesn't tell Beard. I think those they choose to keep it quiet not *just* to protect Rebecca but because they know it would do much more harm than good to tell other people. Beard and Roy I think in particular would have had a really really difficult time forgiving Rebecca after that, and the show wanted to move the story forward.

Similarly, Rebecca and Jamie don't talk to one another on the show, lol. Rebecca has no idea she sent Jamie back to a situation of abuse, from her pov she probably convinced herself she was actually helping Jamie by returning him to a better team. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that from the writers standpoint, I get that it would be really hard to write a scene where Rebecca calls Jamie into her office to be like "hey, by the way....you don't know me well or know that i did this to you, but i'm sorry for it!" in a way that doesn't read as super weird and forced. Ultimately, who would that have even served? Because I don't think it actually would have helped Jamie to know that.

Personally, I was most let down by how quickly Keeley forgave her. I think it would have been more impactful to let Keeley really be angry at her for her betrayal for longer. they tend to forgive extremely quickly on this show, don't they? lol. And I think Rebecca's s2 arc should have been more focused on taking active involvement with the team and their success as opposed to romance, to better demonstrate the weight of her change.

[lheiplantado]

The Greatest Commandment

In Matthew 22:37 NIV, Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This verse is a powerful reminder of the greatest commandment, calling us to a wholehearted devotion to God. It challenges us to examine the depth and sincerity of our love for Him, urging us to go beyond following the rules of religious traditions and to cultivate an intimate, all-encompassing relationship with our Creator.

Loving God with all our heart means that our emotions and desires are aligned with His will. It means that we prioritize Him above all else, allowing His love to shape our affections and guide our decisions. When we love God with all our soul, we are committing our very being to Him. Our identity, purpose, and existence are rooted in His love, and we find our true fulfillment in living for His glory.

To love God with all our mind is to engage our intellect in the pursuit of knowing Him more deeply. It involves meditating on His Word, seeking His wisdom, and allowing His truth to transform our thoughts and perspectives. This holistic love for God is not a one-time event but a daily, intentional choice to surrender every aspect of our lives to Him.

Reflecting on this commandment, we’re reminded that our love for God should be evident in every area of our lives. It should influence how we interact with others, how we spend our time, and how we use our resources. As we grow in our love for God, we become more attuned to His presence and more responsive to His leading.

Today, let’s surrender our hearts, souls, and minds to God. Let us seek to deepen our relationships with Him, knowing that as we do, we will experience the fullness of His love and the abundant life He promises.

[andthebubbles]

i have a (very important 😏🐱🐶) compilation to make (excerpts from baby, you're a haunted house by spit-kitten (simon/anthony)):

ch 1:

After all, not everybody had the benefit of Simon's distinguished glare. Anthony smarted at the memory of standing before Nigel Berbrooke this summer and singularly failing to intimidate him. Nigel Berbrooke. He had as good as given up on reprimanding Eloise for anything ever since the day that he had stormed into her room with newly-bruised knees and demanded that she refrain from leaving piles of books lying around in hallways, and she had simply laughed and told him to stop looking like a scalded cat and start looking where he was going. And there was that night in Oxford - he could not remember the beginning of the quarrel, or who it had been with - just recalled looking up at somebody, stung, and a voice full of derision saying, 'God, Bridgerton, spare me the big eyes: you look like a kicked bitch. Can you fetch? Beg? Roll over?'

ch 2:

Not that the strikes themselves were anything like wholehearted: Simon was mostly feinting at his head, giving him the lightest of taps to the shoulder, to the flank – spending more of his energy on laughing at Anthony than earnestly attempting to blacken his eye. Anthony himself was more interested in trying to step on his opponent’s feet than avoiding his strikes. Eventually recklessness earned its just desert, and his efforts brought him close enough to let Simon catch him by the shoulder. And then to squeeze, firmly enough that it had Anthony gasping out a laugh of surprise and trying to squirm away from the pressure of a thumb against his collar bone. Simon, damn him, just grinned and held on; gave him a shake, like he was shaking a boisterous puppy by its scruff.

ch 5:

The difficulty came in keeping his affection, his pathetic lap-dog affection, in check.

He had let it flourish unexamined for so many years now that he found he could no longer remember where the line should be drawn between permissible familiarity and what lay beyond; between teasing camaraderie and – well, there was no way round it – and coquetry.

The delight he took in Simon's company made it all too easy to forget. He was too eager to please, to amuse, to rouse his friend from the fits of guarded melancholy to which he was still prey, and he was too swept along by the pleasure he gained from any success in that arena to heed his own words or to look ahead to where they might be leading him, and then without any warning he would find himself stranded. Breaking off in the middle of the story he was telling, hoping to make Simon laugh. Suddenly remembering that the last time he had recounted it, he had been lying boneless and aglow in Siena's bed, his head pillowed on her thigh, hoping to make her laugh. Hoping to make her love him.

The only real, sustained privacy he was afforded was when George was changing his bandages, and he would spend the entire time with his face heated, sunk in confusion, poring over his conduct so far that day and probing it for slips. On more than one occasion, Simon had remarked on his flush on his return, his 'What do you two do in there?' not sounding entirely like a joke. Well, better that he should believe Anthony was letting every one of his footmen fuck him senseless than that he should suspect the truth.

And that was really, truly the only privacy. Anthony no longer had to worry about retiring to his dark and chilly bedroom: he simply was not doing so. When the first evening since that long, strange night of the shooting had begun to draw to a strained close, he had been so obviously unwilling to part – had sat up so long in front of the fire, talking of nothing – that Simon had finally tired of his slow blinks and stifled yawns, and said, more gentle than Anthony was used to hearing him, 'You need to lie down, Bridgerton, before you fall down. Come, can you bear to spend another night curled up on a sofa like the world's heaviest kitten?'

Anthony had said, less indignant than he was used to hearing himself, that he could bear anything Simon could, and bear it better, or words to a similar effect.

'How fortunate,' his host had replied in tones of grim amusement, guiding him to his less-than-luxurious bed for the night, 'that I am a man with more than one couch. I will take this one, and we shall see whose back gives out first.' And Anthony had concentrated all the parts of his mind that had not already fallen asleep on feeling entirely normal as he watched Simon walk away to the other side of the room – not devastated at all.

He had been so exhausted that first evening that it had been easy, completely natural, to fall asleep there with the soft sound of Simon's breathing in the air. It had become – more difficult over the past couple of days. His mind had been less obligingly empty, the nights less obligingly dreamless and every morning when he woke, sleep-dazed, to see Simon sitting across from him, it had been harder and harder to remember why he was all the way over there, already dressed and attending to his post, and why it was imperative that Anthony should not reach out for him and kiss him good morning.

And it was beginning to do terrible things to his back, but he rather felt he deserved them.

--

His host cut an impressive figure in his boots and long coat, with shining raindrops caught in his hair. Far more suited to a backdrop suddenly grown wild and romantic than Anthony himself, who must already be well on his way to looking as bedraggled as the cat from the poem, after she had slipped into the fish-pond and drowned.

--

Don't, he thought, numbly, don't. But Simon continued, his voice heavy, soaked in scorn.

'I have cheering news for you: unmarried, no heir, beginning to be notorious – in his eyes, you have already failed. Every day that you linger here, tempting fate, you are failing him further. How would he react if he saw you so unmanned by such a hopeless attachment?’ – Anthony stopped breathing – ‘Lapdog to an opera singer, for God's sake. The cast-off plaything of somebody who spurns, who does not even see you. Do you think it would make him proud?'

The pounding of Anthony's pulse was almost too much to let him hear this last. Simon did not even know what he had hit on, could not know the true resonance of his words – He was caught between wanting to lunge at him, and being rooted to the spot, pale and speechless. Here it was, the kind of scene he had been running from all week – must have been fearing for years, without ever truly understanding why. Here was a glimpse of the ridicule, the disgust that awaited him if his mask of indifferent friendship were ever to slip and reveal the detestable truth.

If at any point this past week he had been unsure for a moment that he loved Simon, then he knew it now. He knew it with more certainty than he had known anything in his life, because if he had not loved him then this would not feel quite so much like some vital thread had been pulled out of him, and he was going to shake apart at the seams.

He grasped for the instinctive fury that would have flared up so easily only a week ago; he tried to let it rise and carry him forward, tried to form a fist. But he could not approach. He could not get closer; he could not make himself touch Simon. People will talk, he thought, with a kind of dull horror. Oh, God.

All of his famous temper, all of his precious disdain; it had all abandoned him completely, draining out and leaving him pathetically sick and shaky. He felt only an abject self-loathing, so thick his throat hurt with it.

And he was going to feel like this, he realised, feel a portion of this utter worthlessness, every time he looked at Simon – for the rest of his life.

'You bastard,' he said, voice horribly soft, and did the only thing he could think of. He turned and left.

ch 8:

'How are your ribs?' he asked, fixing the patient with a stern look. He really would leave Anthony alone if there was the slightest hint of pain, no matter how difficult that might be.

Anthony seemed entirely unintimidated; he simply laughed and gave a pleased stretch, pressing into the hand in his hair in the manner of a cat. A self-satisfied but particularly winsome cat. 'Now, what could that question possibly signify?' he said, with a side-long glance and a spirited grin. 'Desperate to fuck me again, by any chance? Do you have a surgeon waiting in the wings to come and clear me for duty – or shall we throw caution to the wind and simply get on with it?’

As Anthony's ideas went, that one did not sound so bad. Simon couldn't very well not grind the wretch's face gently into the pillows for his impertinence, not when he already had a convenient hand in his hair, but he did not make much of a job of it; he was too eager to kiss away his captive’s laughing protestations and turn to other, even more satisfying methods of making him writhe against the sheets.

He was starting to have a notion – appearing before him like a vision, a miracle – of what might come after you had everything you wanted. Perhaps you had it again, and again, and again.

--

The thought of being able to reach over and take Anthony's hand while he was trying to eat his breakfast, of capturing his wrist, leaning down to steal the food from his fork and getting kicked at for his trouble - of doing, in fact, what he always had done, and yet having it be so entirely different; it was absurdly pleasing. Of being able to regard him openly when he was all early morning energy, as he washed and dressed and sat obediently for his shave; of watching as the weight of Simon's gaze made his cheeks hot under George's brisk fingers, the air in the room going tight.

[zolo1917]

Theory: About Columbina, Goddess of flowers and Seelies.

Now people theorize that the Goddess of Flowers maybe is a seelie due to Arana line in the aranara world quest..

He mention that the GOF is from a race which was cursed when they fell inlove with humans.. and seelies by nature loves to guide and aid humanity.. like in game they lead us to treasure chests.

But what if they dont follow this usual nature? Its possible.. this curse does not affect rare unusual seelies that DOES NOT fall in love or are indifferent with humans.

Hence we have the Goddess of flowers.

"The Goddess of Flowers lived during the time when the Second Who Came arrived from beyond the firmament and brought war to her kin, though she acknowledges that they "brought about illusions that could break through shackles to the land." She was later "cast aside by the heavens" along with the rest of her kin, who were punished for an unknown sin by becoming stripped of their minds and becoming husks of their former selves. Somehow, the Goddess of Flowers was able to maintain her original form. " - flower of Paradise lost

"maintain her original form" could be in my theory not being affected by the curse of the seelies.

It is said that flowers blossom so that they may enjoy a spectacular death, and that death was precisely the wholehearted pursuit of the Lord of Flowers — for death adds bitterness to lost joy, and intensifies with time across endless memories. - Oasis garden of truth

And this might be proof that the GOF never loved Deshret at all and was just using him.. the fact that she can maintain her alliance with him and built ay khanoum with him despite knowing full well Deshret madly adores her is sus... Unless theres proof GOF reciprocated deshrets affection im inclined to think she was just using him..

Now with all that said.. If Columbina is indeed a seelie just like what others have theorized here before then its possible she escaped the "seelie curse" the same way GOF did.. and its clear as being part of the Atrocius Fatui organization as one of its harbingers we can tell that she prolly has no affection or is indifferent with human suffering as well..

Seelies was known to have immense wisdom in their prime.. just like GOF.. this might be the reason they have powers that rivals that of the current Archons. If so the way that traveller will defeat Columbina is to make her "love humans".. and probably.. be a part of his/her harem.

[hotoyaji]

Don't Mess With the Pooch! (Paws & Claws) Ch 40 Update

After being abandoned by his parents when young, Gyun Heesung grew up in a casino. For the sake of his hyung, who took him in, he doesn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way. However, after an ambush, he finds himself injured and transformed back into his dog form. And upon waking up...

"What's with this dirty rag of a pooch?" "Let go - you goddamn bastard!"

Gyun Heesung suddenly became the pet dog of a predatory wolf. Though he now lives being showered with wholehearted care and affection, their cohabitation is somewhat unsettling.

"Doggy... I don't think I'll eat you up." "C-crazy bastard."

A story about the cohabitation between a doggy that wants to run away from a carnivorous wolf and a wolf who's completely smitten by said dog.

See more...

[uncle67037]

Jesus said that if we truly love God and our neighbors, we will naturally keep the commandments. This is looking at God’s law positively. Rather than worrying about all we should not do, let us concentrate on all we can do to show our love for God and others.

The Greatest Commandment

In Matthew 22:37 NKJV "Jesus said to him, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This verse is a powerful reminder of the greatest commandment, calling us to a wholehearted devotion to God. It challenges us to examine the depth and sincerity of our love for Him, urging us to go beyond following the rules of religious traditions and to cultivate an intimate, all-encompassing relationship with our Creator.

Loving God with all our heart means that our emotions and desires are aligned with His will. It means that we prioritize Him above all else, allowing His love to shape our affections and guide our decisions. When we love God with all our soul, we are committing our very being to Him. Our identity, purpose, and existence are rooted in His love, and we find our true fulfillment in living for His glory.

To love God with all our mind is to engage our intellect in the pursuit of knowing Him more deeply. It involves meditating on His Word, seeking His wisdom, and allowing His truth to transform our thoughts and perspectives. This holistic love for God is not a one-time event but a daily, intentional choice to surrender every aspect of our lives to Him.

Reflecting on this commandment, we’re reminded that our love for God should be evident in every area of our lives. It should influence how we interact with others, how we spend our time, and how we use our resources. As we grow in our love for God, we become more attuned to His presence and more responsive to His leading.

Today, let’s surrender our hearts, souls, and minds to God. Let us seek to deepen our relationships with Him, knowing that as we do, we will experience the fullness of His love and the abundant life He promises.

Let's Pray: God, You are worthy of all my love and devotion. You invite me to love You with everything I am—my mind, will, and emotions. It’s so easy to become distracted and not love You fully, but I want to turn my whole self to You. Help me love You fully. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.